Each time the couple kissed was like a slow execution to Vanordan, the court magician. He had grown up with the princess and harbored a childhood love. But a prince from a neighboring land couldn’t be refused.

There were many such lands, Vanordan realized, and he was young. Why stay and torment himself?

He packed his wand, his spellbooks, his herbs. Before leaving, he brewed a steaming green potion. “A farewell gift,” he said to the princess, and turned his back.

Suspicious, she dumped the potion in the royal garden and watched, a bit sad, as a gorgeous rosebush sprouted.

Author’s Note: Some tales of unrequited love end in malice, but they don’t all have to.

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The cold didn’t bother Steffon Drake at first; the isolation, though, almost drove him mad.

Above, red hot streaks of debris continued to rain—remnants of his exploration pod. Only the escape vessel had worked properly. It steamed in the ice and snow behind him as he took in the alien world.

Blinding whiteness. Drake dimmed his helmet lenses, then oriented himself south. He could calculate his latitude after sunset, but he figured a minimum of four months’ walk to clear the glaciers and reach his colleagues at the equator.

Drake hoisted a rudimentary survival pack, sighed, and started walking.

Author’s Note: This story came from an image of a group of colonists landing on a new planet, only the landing goes awry for one of them. Perhaps it’s a snippet of something larger.

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